Web Development Fundamentals

Chapter 1: Introduction to Web Development

Welcome to Web Development!

Web development is the process of creating websites and web applications that run on the internet. In this comprehensive course, you'll learn the three fundamental technologies that power the modern web:

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) - The structure and content of web pages
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - The styling and layout of web pages
JavaScript - The interactive behavior and functionality of web pages

                💡 Pro Tip: Think of HTML as the skeleton, CSS as the skin and clothing, and JavaScript as the muscles that make everything move!
            

What You'll Build

Throughout this course, you'll build several real-world projects including:

A personal portfolio website
A responsive business landing page
An interactive to-do list application
A weather dashboard with API integration

Your First HTML Document

Let's start with the most basic HTML document. Every HTML page follows this basic structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>My First Web Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>Welcome to my first web page.</p>
</body>
</html>
            

Understanding the Structure

Let's break down what each part does:

<!DOCTYPE html> - Tells the browser this is an HTML5 document
<html> - The root element that contains all other elements
<head> - Contains metadata about the page (not visible to users)
<title> - Sets the page title shown in the browser tab
<body> - Contains all the visible content of the page

                🎯 Exercise: Create your own HTML file using the structure above. Change the title and add your own heading and paragraph. Open it in your web browser to see the result!
            

HTML Elements and Tags

HTML uses elements to structure content. Elements are created using tags, which are keywords surrounded by angle brackets. Most elements have an opening tag and a closing tag:

<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<strong>This text is bold</strong>
<em>This text is italic</em>
            

Common HTML Elements

Here are some of the most commonly used HTML elements:

Element	Purpose	Example
`<h1> to <h6>`	Headings (largest to smallest)	`<h1>Main Title</h1>`
`<p>`	Paragraphs	`<p>Some text</p>`
`<a>`	Links	`<a href="url">Link</a>`
`<img>`	Images	`<img src="image.jpg" alt="Description">`
`<div>`	Generic container	`<div>Content</div>`

What's Next?

In the next chapter, we'll dive deeper into HTML structure and learn about semantic elements that make your websites more accessible and SEO-friendly. We'll also start building our first project!

                📚 Homework: Practice creating HTML documents with different headings, paragraphs, and links. 
                Try to create a simple "About Me" page with your name, a brief description, and links to your social media profiles.
            

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